Ghanaian Greetings: Community Impact Project and My Home-stay Family

Hello all!

Sorry for the late posts, I’ve had a few drafts written but haven’t had access to reliable Internet in a while to upload.

As part of my internship program, I am also involved in an organization called Proworld, they are an NGO registered in Ghana (and other places around the world) but the head offices are in San Francisco. Proworld places study abroad students, volunteers and interns at different organizations based on the participants area if interest. Here in Ghana they partner with multiple organizations varying from healthcare facilities, environmental projects and economic development organizations. Proworld also sets up our homestays and provides language lessons and Global Community Initiative lectures once a week.

Once a month all of the participants help out on a local impact project. So this last weekend (May 18^th) we all went out to a local village to help build bricks that will be used to build a hospital. The project was initially going to be a small clinic, but the chief of the village granted more land, so now there is enough to build a larger hospital.

Our first task was to pump water from the well and carry it in buckets, on our heads of course, just like the locals, to the site. Then we mix the water and cement by hand and begin filling the brick forms, packing it in so they don’t crumble once they are dry.

pumping water from the well

We try to carry buckets on our heads, but Ghanaians do it with no hands!

mixing water into the cement mixture by hand, literally.

filling the brick molds

carrying the brick molds, they're much heavier than they look

pushing the brick out of the mold to dry in the sun

Dried bricks from the last group

Our group, proud of our work!

As you can see, everything is done by hand so the process to build a large building like this takes quite a while. Also, the materials to build all of the bricks are not purchased all at once, so today we finished three bags of cement, and next time we will do about the same.

After the work was finished for the day we were invited to have lunch at the village, where we were served a “family style” traditional Ghanaian meal. On the menu was banku a dough like ball made from fermented corn and cassava, a hot pepper sauce (much like salsa) and palmnut soup. The food is a completely separate adventure all on its own, but I’ve been able to find a few things that I like so far J

Banku and palmnut soup

Lunch Time!

I also wanted to mention my homestay family, who I have been staying with for a few weeks now. My homestay mom, who I call Auntie Evelyn, has been very welcoming and kind, she even lets me pick out what I want to eat for each meal! (which is sometimes a challenge since I don’t know what I like and don’t like yet) She has had 12 other Proworld participants stay with her since 2009, so living with her is easy and fun.

Auntie Evelyn has 4 daughters, Acquaaba (11), Maud (9), Charlotte (6) and Edina (2) and a girl, Mary, who also lives here to help with chores around the house. With a packed house all the time there is never a dull moment, and makes time go by very fast.

We spend most of our nights playing card games or watching tv and sometimes I help the girls with their homework. But, even that can sometimes become boring for the girls, who find other creative games to play, like climbing the pillar in the hall (which the baby is also involved in as well). haha